FORT WORTH — Roush Fenway Racing has been so successful at Texas Motor Speedway that its team owner, Jack Roush, was inducted into the track's Hall of Fame on Thursday night.

It's easy to see why. Roush's teams have a total of 18 NASCAR wins at Texas — including a series-high nine in Sprint Cup — since the track opened in 1997. Roush swept the weekend here one year ago, with Greg Biffle winning the Cup race.

But with the team off to an inconsistent start on tracks where it is typically strong — the 1.5- and 2-mile venues — Saturday night's NRA 500 is a key test for Biffle, Carl Edwards and rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

"If you would have told me I would finish (17th) at Las Vegas and ninth at Martinsville (an 0.526-mile short track), I would have told you that you were smoking something," Biffle said Thursday. "I just never thought that would happen to us, but that is just the way it works."

If the three Roush drivers want to establish themselves as serious contenders for a championship this season, Texas would be a good place to do it. Biffle and Edwards are sixth and seventh in the points standings, respectively, and Stenhouse is 15th.

Roush teams typically capitalize on tracks such as Texas to get points and wins that go toward a Chase run. Biffle used victories at Texas and Michigan International Speedway — a 2-mile track — to help him make the Chase last season. He led the points for 14 weeks.

But at Las Vegas, the first intermediate track race of this season, Biffle and his team "plain and simple screwed up.

"We were just way off with the new car," he said, adding that he took the blame.

Stenhouse was 18th then, but Edwards was fifth — a sign that maybe the problem wasn't team-wide.

A couple weeks later in California, Biffle said the speed in his car was "more (like) us," but he finished sixth after starting at the back due to an engine change.

In the same race, Edwards was fourth and Stenhouse 20th.

But Biffle was the fastest car in Thursday's test session at Texas, leaving him "pretty confident" his team will have a typically strong run.

"I think we have a good chance at winning," he said. "Right place, right time."

Roush's chances could be bolstered by its relationship with Penske Racing, which switched from Dodge to Ford this season. The teams use the same engines and have been "sharing a lot of information," according to Penske driver Brad Keselowski (who finished second in November's Texas race).